Related papers: The WFIRST Exoplanet Microlensing Survey
The 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope(INT) is currently being used to carry out a major multi-colour, multi-epoch, CCD based wide field survey over an area of 100 square degrees. The survey parameters have been chosen to maximise scientific…
The coronagraphic instrument (CGI) on the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will demonstrate technologies and methods for high-contrast direct imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanet systems in reflected light, including…
We analyze photometric observations of stars, which experienced microlensing events at the considered time, in order to compare the efficiency of detecting exoplanets in observations performed at thirteen different telescopes and with…
We report the discovery of an extrasolar planet, KMT-2015-1b, that was detected using the microlensing technique. The planetary lensing event was observed by KMTNet survey that has commenced in 2015. With dense coverage by using network of…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared space telescope that has recently started its science program which will enable breakthroughs in astrophysics and planetary science. Notably, JWST will provide the very first…
An international group of scientists has begun planning for the Planet Formation Imager (PFI, www.planetformationimager.org), a next-generation infrared interferometer array with the primary goal of imaging the active phases of planet…
Over the past decades, direct imaging has confirmed the existence of substellar companions (exoplanets or brown dwarfs) on wide orbits (>10 au) from their host stars. To understand their formation and evolution mechanisms, we have initiated…
The proposed infrared space interferometry mission Darwin has two main aims: (i) to detect and characterize exo-planets similar to the Earth, and (ii) to carry out astrophysical imaging in the wavelength range 6 - 20 micron at a sensitivity…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be at infrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will devote significant observing time to the study of exoplanets. It will not be serviceable as was the Hubble Space Telescope, and therefore the spacecraft/instruments will have a relatively limited…
We propose to develop a wide-field and ultra-high-precision photometric survey mission, temporarily named "Earth 2.0 (ET)". This mission is designed to measure, for the first time, the occurrence rate and the orbital distributions of…
Microlensing offers a unique opportunity to probe exoplanets that are temperate and beyond the snow line, as small as Jovian satellites, at extragalactic distance, and even free floating exoplanets, regimes where the sensitivity of other…
A microlensing survey by Sumi et al. (2011) exhibits an overabundance of short-timescale events (STEs; t_E<2 days) relative to what is expected from known stellar populations and a smooth power-law extrapolation down to the brown dwarf…
The two Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) missions aim to perform spectroscopy on extrasolar Earths; TPF-C will operate in visible light, and TPF-I will operate in the mid-infrared. Extrasolar Earths are assumed to be roughly 26 magnitude in…
Since the first discovery of microlensing events nearly two decades ago, gravitational microlensing has accumulated tens of TBytes of data and developed into a powerful astrophysical technique with diverse applications. The review starts…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be atinfrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, $a$ greater than $\sim 1.5 R_E$. Planets in…
Four planets have recently been discovered by gravitational microlensing. The most recent of these discoveries is the lowest-mass planet known to exist around a normal star. The detection of planets in gravitational microlensing events was…
The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) Project is dedicated to defining a next-generation facility that can answer fundamental questions about how planets form, including detection of young giant exoplanets and their circumplanetary disks. The…
A large fraction of white dwarfs (WDs) may host planets in their habitable zones. These planets may provide our best chance to detect bio-markers on a transiting exoplanet, thanks to the diminished contrast ratio between the Earth-sized WD…